Hyderabad: 1,137 failed students pass

Hyderabad: After reverifying answer scripts of candidates following public anger at the marks goof-up, the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) on Monday declared that 1,137 students who it had declared failed had actually passed the exams. Data showed that nearly 500 students had gained six marks or more.

The BIE released the reverification results after making parents and students wait for more than five hours after the appointed time. A BIE official said 2.97 per cent of the students had benefited from the reverification.

The BIE was forced to reverify the answer sheets after it was pulled up by the High Court and ordered to do so by the state government following political and public protests.

Out of the 1,137 candidates, 552 are from the second year and 585 from the first year. These second year students can now pursue their graduation courses.

The board gave a break-up of how many marks the students had gained during reverification. It declared that 497 students had gained “six marks and above”, which did not give a clear picture of the magnitude of errors during verification the first time round.

Experts demanded that the board should give a detailed break-up of how many marks the students had gained during reverification.

Mr P. Madhusudhan Reddy from the Government Junior College Lecturers Association said that this was the first time so many students passed after reverification. The number stands at about 500 every year. The number of students who apply for reverification varies from 25,000 to 90,000. “The number of students declared passed increased because of the increase in the scripts evaluated this time,” Mr Reddy said. The board reverified 9,02,429 answer scripts pertaining to 3,82,116 candidates. The number of scripts is more than the number of students as many students failed in more than one subject.

Following protests, the government constituted a committee of three experts which made a series of recommendations including getting a second agency to vet the results. The BIE requested the Telangana State Technology Services to identify a suitable agency, It chose Datatech Methodex.

The results processed by Datatech and the original agency, Globarena Technologies, was then sent to the Centre for Good Governance for a check.

The BIE said 21,537 students had applied for reverification of papers. Since the board reverified the papers of all failed candidates free, it would return the money by June 12.

However, the board is yet to declare results for 19,788 scripts as they are pending for scanning. Meanwhile, all copies will made available for students to download soon.